Gallup: Slight Majority Say Homosexuality Morally Acceptable

Gallup: Slight Majority Say Homosexuality Morally Acceptable

A new Gallup poll shows that a slight majority -- 54 percent -- of Americans believe homosexuality is morally acceptable, compared with 42 percent who say it is morally wrong, the Christian Post reports. Frank Newport, editor-in-chief for Gallup, said support for same-sex marriage tended to track closely with the belief that homosexuality was acceptable. "Overall, they're very close and they've kind of followed the same trend pattern if you look over time," he said. "So, basically, they're both rising together and falling together and so forth." According to the poll, 50 percent currently say same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid. In 1999, only 35 percent said so. As for the fact that gay marriage receives greater support in polls than in state referendums -- evidenced by 31 states passing constitutional amendments to ban it -- Newport said there were two possible reasons: that the referendums were isolated to individual states while Gallup's poll was nationwide, and that the passage of referendums depends largely upon voter turnout and may not represent the state as a whole.